Infiltrating Bay Shores – from the mayor’s daughter’s perspective
By Bill Kelly
Ocean City Mayor Tom Waldman had two daughters: Kate Lynn, aka “Katie,” who was to be 18 on July 28, 1965, and me, Christine, also known as “Chris,” all of 15 at the time and one of your humble narrators. Although it has been nearly 60 years since then, I still look back at that time through the eyes of a teenager.
While my older sister could easily pass for 21, I was 15 and looked like a 12-year-old tomboy. So there was no way I was going to experience the likes of Tony Marts or Bay Shores.
But Katie was there all the time. It was part of her routine when she wasn’t working as a waitress at the Chatterbox, where I also worked part time bussing tables.
Katie got in the nightclubs all the time, though she had to pace herself to avoid running into Dad, whose favorite band was led by Mike Pedicin, Jr., one of the house bands at Bay Shores.
She preferred the bands on the back stage where they played a newer, louder, more danceable rock and roll that appealed to the younger college crowd; bands like the Carroll Brothers, Bobby Duke and the Dukes, Johnny Caswell and Rocco and the Saints.
Katie liked the drummer for the Saints: Bobby Ridarelli, because he’s only 14 years old and she can relate to him.
Then something happened, though it didn’t happen all at once. The house bands that started at the beginning of the summer didn’t all stay in one place, but moved around the stages. Pedicin and the older crowd were moved from the main stage to the back stage, and the new age rock and rollers were given the spotlight and main dance floor. The hip, younger crowd were spending more money than the older crowd.
Some bands didn’t last the summer and moved on to other gigs at juke joints in Margate, Wildwood, Atlantic City or Asbury Park.
By mid-summer Pedicin was gone from Bay Shores for good, and took his crowd across the street to Steel’s Ship Bar and then later, to DiOrio’s on the other side of the traffic circle.
The new age rock and rollers kept the main stage and a completely new element came in, led by Tido Mambo. He was quickly followed by the hipster Magic Mushrooms and the Monkey Men, a group of bikers who performed in a cage, and the college kids went wild. Or so my sister says.
With Dad now comfortably across the street at Steel’s, Katie now had more opportunities to get into Tony Marts and Bay Shores, and hit the Point as much as she could.
Even though she was only 18, if she was wearing a dress and was with a guy in a suit and tie, she was in.
When I finally got the chance to experience them first hand it was even better than I imagined.
It was a Sunday afternoon, so the boardwalk crowd was small, and it started to rain.
After working breakfast and lunch shifts with my sister at the Chatterbox, she “hit the Point” while I went back into my routine – skateboarding to the boardwalk arcade.
Bay Shores didn’t have an afternoon matinee show every day, only when it rains, when all the college kids get off the beach and boardwalk and take in the rainy afternoon.
‘Moon Dog’ Matinee at Bay Shores
If the band gets really hot, things can get kinda crazy, even more crazy than a typical Saturday night.
While she was dancing and partying at the Point, I was spending my tip money playing pinball machines and games at the boardwalk arcade.
Back then my routine required a slice of pizza at Mack & Manco’s, where Duncan was one of the pie makers. Duncan was a lot older than me – going on 20, but he was a Marine, just got out of flight school, and had six weeks off before joining his unit. He was leaving to fly helicopters in Vietnam on the day after Labor Day.
Besides being a slow Sunday afternoon, it continued to rain, just a drizzle. But that was enough so everyone left the beach and the boards were pretty much empty.
I was the only person at the counter, and Duncan didn’t have anyone to make pizza for so he took out three cardboard boxes, slipped a pie into each box, closed them, and stacked them up in front of me.
“Bring these and follow me,” he said.
I picked them up and we went out the back of the 9th Street store, down some steps and under the boardwalk where, without opening the door, he jumped into the seat of a brand new white 1965 Mustang convertible.
“Get in.” He motioned me into the passenger seat.
While it was a brand new car, I was a little quizzical about all of the dents, scratches, scrapes and broken window, but it quickly became apparent where those nicks had come from as the engine sprung to life and we pulled out from under the boardwalk onto 9th Street.
Duncan drove like a madman.
We whipped around people and past cars and through a red light. We came to a stop, but when nobody was coming the other way he just took off, like a bat out a hell.
We were on the causeway in no time, and I’m glad the bridges didn’t open because I knew he would try to fly over it.
We passed an Ocean City patrol car just after we ran the red light, but the cop just waved, and Duncan waved back.
All of the cops have stopped Duncan at one time or another in the past few weeks, but because he’s a Marine, he gets a “Get Outa Jail Free” card. I think they actually admire him.
So with radio blaring the Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” we drove across the causeway with the top down through the drizzling rain and pulled up at Bay Shores’ front door before the song was over.
“Follow me,” he instructed, and at the front door of Bay Shores. He took the pizza off the top and gave it to the doorman and club manager, Jack Murray, who was collecting the $2 cover.
The second pizza went to the bartender behind the first big rectangle bar by the door – who I later learned was the legendary “Buddy” Tweill – 6 foot 4 with a beach boy tan.
He flipped the caps off two long neck Budweisers and handed them to Duncan, who passed one to me – my first beer in a bar.
Duncan and Buddy didn’t have to talk, and actually couldn’t because the band was so loud. Led by Johnny Caswell, the band was terrific, and firmly engraved in my memory as the first band I caught at Bay Shores.
They later went from straight to hip and changed their name to the Crystal Mansion, but when I first saw them they played songs that I knew from the Chatterbox jukebox – “The Thought of Loving You,” and “Carolina On My Mind” were two. But there were others, too.
A half hour later, as Caswell’s band finished their first set, another band on the other side of the room kicked in, and the energy shifted to the back of the room, and it wasn’t so loud; at least you could talk.
The third pizza went to Johnny Caswell, who jumped off the stage and greeted Duncan with a solid handshake and a shoulder hug, as Johnny took a slice of pizza and passed the box back to his drummer on stage.
The bar was still packed and I stood back against the wall, standing out like a sore thumb in my Chatterbox uniform dress, afraid I would run into my sister; but at the same time I wanted to explore the club and walk around a bit.
The dance floors were full and everybody was just dancing; some dancing in their stools, others on their seats, one girl got up on the bar to dance and the whole room was rockin’.
As I scanned the room I saw a lot of kids I knew from the beach, boardwalk and the Chatterbox, some of them in disguise, as they were underage, too. But then it happened.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” Katie screamed into my right ear, blindsiding me from behind.
“If Dad finds out you’re here you are grounded for the rest of the summer – you know that, don’t you?”
“Well what about you?” I countered, without much punch.
Then Duncan turned around and smiled and Katie melted. I introduced them, and she introduced us all to Bobby, the drummer with the Saints, whom I could identify with because he was so young.
“Gee,” I tried to placate her. “Duncan’s not twenty one yet, you’re almost eighteen. I’ll be sixteen soon, and how old are you, Bobby?
Hell, none of us are twenty-one,” and it went unsaid that when we looked around the rockin’ room; nobody seemed to notice or care.
“But Dad still can’t find out” – me and my sister both said in unison.
When it came to being under age, it wasn’t so much about wanting to drink as it was the total experience, especially the music, and we felt pretty much invisible when we were out on the dance floor, where we had the most fun and pretty much where we spent most of the afternoon. I still felt a little out of place because everybody was in their bathing suits and I was still in my Chatterbox uniform.
Dad was none too pleased a few hours later when Duncan dropped me off. He was sitting on the front porch reading the paper and Duncan’s reputation had preceded him, even though he was the perfect gentleman.
As I tried to run past him, he put the paper down so I could see his face and said, “Isn’t that the young man who’s in the Marines? The helicopter pilot who is going to Vietnam next month?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Well he’s too old for you.”
“He just gave me a ride home from work.” I lied as I slipped past him into the house.
The hardest thing about the best day of my life up to that point in time was that I couldn’t tell anybody about it.
So I lived at the Shore during its heyday, experienced Bay Shores as it was at its peak at the Point, and would look back at the Summer of ’65 as a pivotal turning point in my life, but you know, we didn’t realize how really special it was at the time. We were just living our daily routines and things went back to normal for a while.
We forgot about the Hell’s Angels, the bikers and the Barbarians, and went back to concentrating on what was really important at the time – the music, and there was much anticipation for the new band that was coming in to Tony Marts, though no one seemed to know their name, just that they were really, really good.
Next Up – The Hawks Check In and The Hawks Kick In
To comment on this story and this series – Billkelly3@gmail.com
